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Clever lyrics, but bit samey. Would have been better if they had swapped with Trevor Horn. Not really a headline act in my opinion. As others had said, too chilly to sit around listening to mid tempo tunes! However, I will investigate further...

Marmite act. We left early. Others loved him/them.

Needed a more uptempo act to headline. DC put me in mind of a poor version of the Bonzos but their frontman is n Viv Stanshall.

Awful, worst act of the weekend by a country mile. Neither divine, nor comedic.
Lots of people seemed to be leaving early, as I did.

Sheer, unabashed, genius.

Great theatrical set from Mr Hannon and the band, Tonight We Fly was perfect to round off a great days music.

I missed the first half of the set going to get some warmer clothes, but what I did see I enjoyed, possibly helped by being able to get pretty close to the front by then. "Lady of a Certain Age" in particular was my sort of wry humour. If I was NH not sure I would have joked that the drinks-serving interlude would be the highlight of the set though, amusing as it was...

Got bored very quickly. Went to the Brasenose instead  :)

Stayed for about half the set. Liked 50% of the songs i heard, unsure about the others 50% A bit low key to keep me in the field.

Stayed to the end, waiting to hear the one song of theirs I knew (National Express), but it didn't really do it for me.  I could appreciate the humour, and the cleverness, but nothing left me wanting more.

As I said to a couple of folk there, I enjoy a quirky song as much as the next man, but after about 40 minutes I'd decided that I'd had enough of quirky. Sorry, not for me and definitely not a headline act.

We quirked off after 30 minutes.

Not a headliner and shouldn't have followed Trev Horn, but a good set, particularly enjoyed I wish I lived in Sweden. Quirky, and on another day would have gone down a storm.

I had only really known National Express before ( apart from the Father Ted related stuff). I was, however, totally captivated by the beauty and poignancy of the lyrics throughout and felt that he was able to capture very sad situations in a quirky fashion.

 I nearly cried at the end of "Our Mutual Friend". You could so imagine a young chap falling head over heels through the simple details of a shared evening described in the lyrics, then the crushing disappointment.

Think I agree that perhaps the set order put them at a disadvantage and Trevor Horn should have headlined.

Dull. Should never have headlined.

Yes they were dull.
There were some great songs in there, with very clever lyrics, but they were delivered in an overblown way, which made them muddy.
They're pop songs, play them with some life.

For me The Divine Comedy were the disappointment of the festival. I was expecting fun.

(It was also a little on the chilly side.)

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Did not get it at all, especially not as a headline act. Listened to national express from back at our tent.

I was familiar with much of the material and enjoyed the performance.
Having said that, I think they should have played before Trevor Horn.

I think they were a cheap option, they wouldn't sell out my local theatre. It's only a couple of years ago we had Alice Cooper on Thursday night, I don't think Devine Comedy are quite in the same league. Out of our party of 7, 3 people had never heard of them and they have only ever had ONE top ten hit
    I'm going to be honest here, I think that when 2000+ tickets were sold at Christmas, the powers that be thought "We are going to sell out whoever we book, so why pay £xxxxxx for a proper headline act when we don't have too. Can there be any other reason to have such a low key band as headliners?

I knew little of DC apart from the Graham Linehan connection, and it was worth being there just for the sensory implant of Craggy Island in 'Songs of Love', let alone the rather ruefully performed 'My Lovely Horse'. It took a while but by the end I felt I had really enjoyed a clever and well-crafted set, which should probably have been on two hours earlier.

Never heard this band before and, never will again, at least willingly.

It is very seldom that Wendy puts her foot down, but 30 mins was quite enough and she stood up, announced "we're off" and we scampered back to the tent.  Some clever words, but the songs (those we heard) weren't all that good, IMHO.

Overblown? Pretentious? Perhaps I am, but I still didn't like what we heard.

(I acknowledge that respected members of this board thought DC were great. Not us, is all I'm saying.)

As the missus said, the songs have interesting lyrics but they all seem to be sung to the same tune. Fun but not enough to keep us on the field as it got colder. We bailed for the warmth of our camper about halfway through the set.

P.S. As a  history buff, I have to say that Neil Hannon's Napoleon costume looked pretty accurate.

Gave them the benefit of the doubt, but after 3 songs I headed off to my bed. Wasn't impressed.

Loved them for ages, and 'Frog Princess' live was fantastic, as was 'Our Mutual Friend', but I think it might have been good to get some of their bouncier numbers in early - 'Come Home Billy Bird' is clever and moving, but it's also fast, because it's trying to capture the desperate urgency of a father trying to race home in time to see his son - it's got all the emotional-punch-to-the-gut you expect from Divine Comedy, but if you're new to them it's bouncy-sounding enough I think it would have got people moving a bit more - awesome headline act as far as I was concerned but the thing about a headline act is that the bar has been doing roaring trade all day so if people don't know the lyrics going in, a slower musical pace can undercut the emotional impact of the lyrics (especially if you're sat around the fringes and competing with the sound from the food stalls!

Stayed for first half hour but Neil Hannon's monotonous voice and the surfeit of largely one-paced songs(despite the clever lyrics) meant I couldn't face another hour of that! Never should have headlined and, following the excellent set by Trevor Horn, think the Divine Comedy was anything but...!

Have not listened too much of their material but remember some of the “hits”.  For me this was an enjoyable set with clever lyrics than you actually needed to listen to rather than just let the music wash over you like a warm shower.  It did not help them that the weather by then was cold and miserable but for me it was well worth going up to the front and staying for the set.

Regarding the should they be a headline act – they are a band playing their material (yes I know the band members have changed significantly).  For me this makes them a headline act rather than the Trevor Horn who knocked out (not very well in a large number of cases) hits wot I have wrote!

But I do agree with an earlier comment they are a marmite band – you either get it and enjoy it or it’s something you walk away from.

I was really looking forward to this, and was disappointed. Maybe I was cold. Maybe they were too clever for that time of night. They were a sit down and listen carefully to the lyrics band, and I wanted to move around then.

I think they would have been better before Trevor Horn.

Paul

Neither Divine nor Comedy.
The first song was I thought quirky and mildly amusing but when repeated several times the band became tedious. I left at 10 and joined a queue to leave the arena.

Really loved them.  They've been off my musical radar for 10+ years and clearly I have some catching up to do.

Meh.
Went back to the tent.

As did I

On the barrier at the front with family. Even Mrs Keith was bopping along, despite the cold and driving rain (not the latter, that's just a lyric). Was a tad slow to start, but as others have said, you need to listen to the lyrics to get the bathos, satire and humour (except Sweden, which is just funny). Neil is a singer, songwriter and actor; that last one is key.

Band were very tight, better than at Glasgow last year, and they played pretty much all the favourites which isn't a prerequisite for enjoyment, but makes it a lot easier to sing along to, which we did - perhaps a little too loudly.  To The Rescue made me cry a bit, as well. Musical highlight of the festival for me.

Didn't work for me I'm afraid. I appreciated some of the amusing lines which, for me, came every couple of songs, but after half an hour or so it started to sound quite samey and it was getting nippy so, uncharacteristically, I gave up.

Isn't the way we can listen to the same music and come to different conclusions fascinating. I find it amazing that comments like monotonous, samey and dull are used for the DC set. Influences ranging from Kurt Weil, the Kinks, Brit pop, and more made it one of the best sets of the weekend for me and anything but dull.

DW

i woild like to think if i had seen them in a warm comfortable venue i would have enjoyed them. If they had been on before Trevor Horn I might have liked them more.  There was (like a lot of the acts i did'nt get this year) nothing really grabed me or interested me enough to stay on a cold field.

Precisely!

Indeed yes. One of the reasons listening to music is so good  :)

Loved it...only days before he was announced me and Abby were having a whatever happened to him type conversation, and there he was. I was down the front so I wasn't cold, and I enjoyed it. Great music, great lyrics and a helping of silly. I only knew a few hits...and My Lovely Horse...and I've bought a few albums since. Something For The Weekend was worth waiting for. I'm not so keen on Marmite, but I thought he was a worthy headliner.